Since Mike Donais teased it, we knew that nerfs were coming — but we didn't have any clue about their actual content. It's been a while since Mage and Warrior dominate the ladder of Hearthstone. Well, brace yourselves because some of their core cards were just nerfed!
Also in this patch, a Zephrys hotfix making him "smarter", and a few hotfixes. Read on!
• Fixed several bugs involving weapon removal:
- Acidic Swamp Ooze was sometimes not offered against 1-Durability weapons.
- Harrison Jones was sometimes offered against 1-Durability weapons when he could not be played that turn.
- Weapon removal cards were not offered against 0-Attack weapons.
- Weapon removal cards were not offered when it would prevent your opponent from having lethal on their next turn.
• Fixed several bugs involving certain cards not being offered:
- Blessed Champion
- Inner Rage
- Bloodsail Corsair
- Holy Fire
- Heroic Strike
- Avenging Wrath
- Spellbreaker
• Fixed several bugs involving Hero Powers:
- Hero Powers were sometimes assumed to be usable, even if they had already been used that turn.
- The current cost for Hero Powers is now considered, instead of assuming a cost of 2.
- Damage and healing modifiers on hero powers are now accounted for.
- Upgraded Hero Powers (such as through Sir Finley of the Sands, or Justicar Trueheart) are now considered.
- If your Hero Power has been replaced, Zephrys will no longer assume your base Hero Power is still usable.
• Fixed a bug where Betrayal was not appropriately counting as a single-target removal option when it would only damage one target.
• Fixed a bug where Alexstrasza was being offered based upon the opponent’s combined Health and Armor, instead of only their Health.
• Fixed a bug where silence cards were not offered to unfreeze your own minions for lethal.
• Among potential lethal options, silence cards will now be favored, in order to help minimize potential interference from Deathrattles or other unique card effects.
• Fixed a bug where Zephrys did not properly consider multiple Deathrattles on the same minion (most commonly from Magnetic minions).
• Improved Zephrys’s evaluation of the value of healing this turn vs next turn.
Luna's Pocket Galaxy
Cost reverted from (5) to (7) mana.
Blizzard explains:
"Buffing cards with the Rise of the Mech event was a big change in philosophy for us. While we are happy with the overall outcome of the changes, Luna’s Pocket Galaxy has proven to be an exception.
An early Luna's Pocket Galaxy can often leave opponents feeling helpless if late-game minions were drawn in subsequent turns. This has occurred more often than we had intended, therefore we're reverting its mana cost back to its original value of 7, as was the case before the Rise of the Mech event."
Conjurer's Calling
Cost changed from (3) to (4) mana.
Blizzard explains:
"While Conjurer’s Calling is a powerful tool that’s found in a number of Mage decks, when used in decks focused around cards like Mountain Giant and Sea Giant it was creating extremely powerful board states at a point in the game where opponents didn’t have effective answers.
Increasing the mana cost of this card will make using both copies of the Twinspell card in a single turn significantly more difficult, postponing these potentially overwhelming turns until later in the game when the Mage’s opponent has more available resources to react to the board."
Dr. Boom, Mad Genius
Cost increased from (7) to (9) mana
Blizzard explains:
"We’d still like Dr. Boom, Mad Genius to be a great option for control Warrior decks looking to close out games, but right now the card gets played a bit too early. Increasing the mana cost to 9 should make it more difficult to find a good turn to play Dr. Boom, giving opponents time to make powerful plays as well."
Extra Arms
Cost rfrom (2) to (3) mana
Blizzard explains:
"During the Rise of the Mech event, Priest was one of the weaker classes in the game. Buffing Extra Arms gave Priest a powerful spell for the early game to enable some of their board-focused strategies.
With the release of Saviors of Uldum, Priest has access to many more powerful early game minions and has seen a large jump in both popularity and winrate. Between all of Priests buff spells and heal effects, it can be hard to fight for the board against them early in the game. Increasing the mana cost of Extra Arms back to 3 should give room for other decks to challenge them early on, while leaving the powerful Priest minions and combos untouched."
Barnes
Cost increased from (4) to (5) mana
Blizzard explains:
"Barnes has been a hot topic in Wild format discussions for quite some time now, especially regarding how oppressive this card can feel when facing certain Priest decks.
While we’re okay with Wild having a higher power level in general, Barnes stood out as too consistently powerful early in the game. Increasing his mana cost by 1 will let opponents have an easier time reacting, but still lets Barnes retain its identity as a way to summon specific minions early in the game."
Written by Jérémie "Djey" Mathis. Translated from French by Millenium.us.org
A few days ago, numerous players have pointed out how strong the Mage and the Warrior classes currently were — as testified by the Master Tour Seoul winning decklists. Well, brace yourselves because Hearthstone Principal Game Designer Mike Donais seems to imply that nerfs are coming...
